Azuela received an M.D. degree in Guadalajara in 1899 and practiced medicine, first in his native town and after 1916 in Mexico City. His best-known work, Los de abajo (1916; The Under Dogs), depicting the futility of the revolution, was written at the campfire during forced marches while he served as an army doctor with Pancho Villa in 1915. Forced to flee across the border to El Paso, Texas, he first published the novel as a serial in the newspaper El Paso del Norte (October–December 1915). It received little notice until it was “discovered” in 1924. It widely influenced other Mexican novelists of social protest and was translated into several languages.

Returning from Texas to Mexico City in 1916, Azuela, disillusioned with the revolutionary struggle, wrote novels critical of the new regime: Las moscas (1918) and Los caciques (1917; together translated as Two Novels of Mexico: The Flies. The Bosses), and Las tribulaciones de una familia decente (1918; The Trials of a Respectable Family). He experimented with stylistic devices in later novels such as La malhora (1923; “The Evil Hour”), El desquite (1925; “Revenge”), and La luciérnaga (1932; The Firefly). His complete works appeared in three volumes in 1958–60.

Learn More in these related articles:

(1910–20), a long and bloody struggle among several factions in constantly shifting alliances which resulted ultimately in the end of the 30-year dictatorship in Mexico and the establishment of a constitutional republic. The revolution began against a background of widespread dissatisfaction...

...seem to be propelled by superior forces, as in Classical tragedy. The best and best-known by far was Los de abajo (1915; The Underdogs), by Mariano Azuela. While the Mexican Revolution as theme continued to dominate Mexican fiction for a good part of the 20th century, in the rest of Latin America there appeared a host of novels that came...